2017-18 NBA Regular Season Game/Observation Thread

Cesar Crespo

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Then DSJ blows a layup by trying to do a reverse. The kid can get where he wants on the floor though...
The Mavs had a few chances to go up and potentially win. They fell down 13 or 14 in the 3rd too.

In other news, the Bulls are an awful basketball team. They lost by 39 to the Spurs tonight. If there's a bright side, it looks like Dunn can play and Portis seems improved. The Spurs have themselves an interesting player in Dejounte Murray.

Ball finishes with 19 points, 13 assists, 12 rebounds, 3 steals, 3 blocks on 7/12, 3/5, 2/4 shooting in the loss.

Suns currently up 95-94 at home vs the Wolves with 7:20 to play. Orlando keeps making a run at Denver but Denver always makes another run of their own.
 

Cesar Crespo

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He is shooting 28% from three, and has as many turnovers as assists.
On a sample size of 15 3's. He looks a lot better than he did last year and it looks like he should have a career in the NBA. He has 24 assists, 24 turnovers and 15 steals for the year. Over the last 4 games, he has 11 steals, 11 assists and 10 turnovers.


Nets are down 5 on the road against the Jazz with 42 seconds left. They were down 18 at one point.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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The Mavs had a few chances to go up and potentially win. They fell down 13 or 14 in the 3rd too.

In other news, the Bulls are an awful basketball team. They lost by 39 to the Spurs tonight. If there's a bright side, it looks like Dunn can play and Portis seems improved. The Spurs have themselves an interesting player in Dejounte Murray.

Ball finishes with 19 points, 13 assists, 12 rebounds, 3 steals, 3 blocks on 7/12, 3/5, 2/4 shooting in the loss.

Suns currently up 95-94 at home vs the Wolves with 7:20 to play. Orlando keeps making a run at Denver but Denver always makes another run of their own.
You are a League Pass God (TM)
 

jon abbey

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You'd think that Cauley-Stein might be one of the few guys who has the size and quickness to give Porzingis some trouble inside and out, but Porzingis ate him alive tonight, outscoring him 34-5 with all 34 coming in a 22 minute span before leaving for good well before the third was over and NY up by 30.
 

Sam Ray Not

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Top players by raw plus-minus:

1. Curry +203
2. Durant +167
3. Gordon +112 (edit for clarification: this is Eric, not Aaron)
4. Beal +108
5. Jaylen +100
6. Horford +99
7. Draymond +94
8. Harden +93
9. Kyrie +91
10. Vucevic +88

+203 through 13 games? +32.4 pts net on-off per 100 possessions? Pace yourself, Stephen.

Also (edit: for entertainment purposes only)

365. LeBron -32
 
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Kliq

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A stat that has LeBron ranked 365th isn’t a stat worth using.
 

Sam Ray Not

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A stat that has LeBron ranked 365th isn’t a stat worth using.
It’s not really a “stat” or a “ranking” — just a thing that happened, in a pretty small sample. I get the sense everyone here is savvy enough to put it in proper context. Obviously I wasn’t implying that LeBron is the 365th best player in the league.
 
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Sam Ray Not

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It's like it's your mission here to make me hate the Warriors. Can't we just have a Warrior thread where you can put this stuff?
Fair enough — we do actually have one of those. I’ll stick to gamethreading here and use that thread for the Dubs meta-commentary.

I do think (as a general meta commentary not specific to the Warriors) that raw plus-minus in big enough samples is a simple, descriptive and underused tool for describing how effective players have been *within the context of their team.* How well it might translate outside of that context, and how predictive it is, are separate questions that we need more context to answer.
 
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mcpickl

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The Mavs had a few chances to go up and potentially win. They fell down 13 or 14 in the 3rd too.

In other news, the Bulls are an awful basketball team. They lost by 39 to the Spurs tonight. If there's a bright side, it looks like Dunn can play and Portis seems improved. The Spurs have themselves an interesting player in Dejounte Murray.

Ball finishes with 19 points, 13 assists, 12 rebounds, 3 steals, 3 blocks on 7/12, 3/5, 2/4 shooting in the loss.

Suns currently up 95-94 at home vs the Wolves with 7:20 to play. Orlando keeps making a run at Denver but Denver always makes another run of their own.
If Lonzo can just face Eric Bledsoe every night he'd be headed to the Hall of Fame.

He's 2 for 2 against him.
 

Sam Ray Not

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Add +26 to Harden and +21 to Gordon on the chart above. Rox stay hot, crush Pacers in Indiana, 118-95.

Gotta think the Beard has opened up a huge lead in the MVP race out of the gate. He has basically everything going for him right now: huge (and hugely efficient) numbers including a historic 56/13 game; great team that is performing even a bit better than expected (certainly since CP3 went down); and doing it without benefit of another top-tier star. And on top everything else: zero MVPs to date, despite putting up three straight seasons in which he had totally MVP-worthy numbers but was ultimately boned by historic seasons by other players who closed slightly stronger than he did.

His to lose right now, imho, with Giannis and LeBron both lurking if they can get their teams to play a bit better (and maybe Kyrie as a dark horse...?)
 

Cesar Crespo

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Add +26 to Harden and +21 to Gordon on the chart above. Rox stay hot, crush Pacers in Indiana, 118-95.

Gotta think the Beard has opened up a huge lead in the MVP race out of the gate. He has basically everything going for him right now: huge (and hugely efficient) numbers including a historic 56/13 game; great team that is performing even a bit better than expected (certainly since CP3 went down); and doing it without benefit of another top-tier star. And on top everything else: zero MVPs to date, despite putting up three straight seasons in which he had totally MVP-worthy numbers but was ultimately boned by historic seasons by other players who closed slightly stronger than he did.

His to lose right now, imho, with Giannis and LeBron both lurking if they can get their teams to play a bit better (and maybe Kyrie as a dark horse...?)
If the Knicks keep winning, Kristaps too.
 

DannyDarwinism

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Yep. He's been pretty, pretty bad so far. Mike James and OG Anunoby with the highest OPA so far, just like everyone expected.
 

GameEight

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And that graphic is visually skewed to favor offensive performance over defense. The Celtics defensive rating of just under 110 is nearly as impressive as the Warriors' offensive rating (just over 110), but the graphic doesn't reflect it.

Another way to say this: Boston's D and Golden State's O are a wash. And vice versa.

I mean, lots of assumptions being made there but still...holy shit.
 

bowiac

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And that graphic is visually skewed to favor offensive performance over defense. The Celtics defensive rating of just under 110 is nearly as impressive as the Warriors' offensive rating (just over 110), but the graphic doesn't reflect it.

Another way to say this: Boston's D and Golden State's O are a wash. And vice versa.

I mean, lots of assumptions being made there but still...holy shit.
That's not really right. I think he's just made the logos on his graph so big that it's hard to see. You can look at the Basketball-Reference adjusted net ratings to compare (after accounting for his scoring of good defenses as above 100). In raw terms, the Celtics have allowed 98.39 points per 100 possessions, or about 8 points per 100 better than average. The Warriors oRating meanwhile is at 118.39, or about 12 points better than average. In adjusted terms (accounting for strength of schedule), the Warriors extend their lead slightly.

Boston's O and Golden's State's D are about a wash so far (both essentially average), but Golden State's offense has been over 4 points per 100 better than the Celtics defense. Overall, that's about the same as the gap between Charlotte and Toronto last year (or Charlotte to the Knicks if you prefer to go the other way).
 

slamminsammya

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To the extent defense js about focus and effort its fixable. And we've seen veteran teams (like the Cavs) really tighten it up in the postseason. To the extent that its about coaching, well Ty Lue just gotta go.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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The Blazers defensive rating seems high. Also I thought the Cavs problem was offense, but apparently it's defense. This is probably easier to fix?
I don't know how fixable it is. CLE may have the worst defense in NBA history. Here's an article that summarizes the problems - https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/behind-the-cavaliers-defensive-disaster-and-yes-lebron-is-part-of-the-problem/ - but the real issue is that CLE can't guard anyone 1 on 1. (They've given up the 2nd most points in isolation and 2nd highest pts per possession in spot-ups.)

Korver can't guard anyone; JR Smith isn't guarding anyone right now; Love can't guard anyone; Thompson's defense has declined per statistics; Crowder is a good system defender but was never the best 1 on 1 defender; and LBJ isn't really focusing on the defensive end.

And then IT4 comes back. They better hope to score 120 a game to win. Or maybe they can just go full Paul Westhead and not bother playing defense.
 

djbayko

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That's not really right. I think he's just made the logos on his graph so big that it's hard to see. You can look at the Basketball-Reference adjusted net ratings to compare (after accounting for his scoring of good defenses as above 100). In raw terms, the Celtics have allowed 98.39 points per 100 possessions, or about 8 points per 100 better than average. The Warriors oRating meanwhile is at 118.39, or about 12 points better than average. In adjusted terms (accounting for strength of schedule), the Warriors extend their lead slightly.

Boston's O and Golden's State's D are about a wash so far (both essentially average), but Golden State's offense has been over 4 points per 100 better than the Celtics defense. Overall, that's about the same as the gap between Charlotte and Toronto last year (or Charlotte to the Knicks if you prefer to go the other way).
I think what he's saying is that the scales aren't even. Each tick mark on the x-axis (offense) is only one point while each tick mark on the y-axis (defense) is two points. Visually, the results - relative value of offense vs. defense - are skewed. Of course, if you know how to read graphs, you quickly overcome this visual handicap :)
 

GameEight

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I think what he's saying is that the scales aren't even. Each tick mark on the x-axis (offense) is only one point while each tick mark on the y-axis (defense) is two points. Visually, the results - relative value of offense vs. defense - are skewed. Of course, if you know how to read graphs, you quickly overcome this visual handicap :)
Yeah, all I was saying is that the y axis interval is visually misleading, and underrates defense relatively to the x axis (offense). And the logos acting as data "points" is obviously gonna skew the interpretation, especially for teams who display a bejunked Irishman.
I am not actually claiming the Celts D is on par historically with the Warriors O....yet.
But wait til Kyrie gets back. ;)
 

dhellers

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I am genuinely curious about the Piston. Top 4 record in league, beaten a few good teams (GSW and LAC).
Are they for real, or what (of course one could you say the same about the celts start)?
 

Gash Prex

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The Cavs are just a bad team right now and on some nights will overcome that badness with stellar offensive talent (not scheme).

Their margin gets better when Thomas comes back but they are just not a top tier team right now
 

Red Averages

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13 point 2nd quarter @ NY. Not even the defense killing them in this game (yet). Amazing how bad they have been and they aren’t even in rest mode...
 

DannyDarwinism

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Is it too much to ask of the basketball gods that Peter Vescey ends his career and the Cavs get embarrassed in the same night?

 

JCizzle

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Lyric or not, just don't ever say that as a white guy. It's really not that hard.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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Jae rockin a solid -17 tonight
It's not his fault he got jettisoned from Brad Stevens Island of Optimal Usage For Misfit Toys to LeBron's Tire Fire Island. Crowder gets nothing but love for his time in Boston. I would not be surprised if he misses playing for the Cs even knowing he has a better shot at a ring along side James.
 

Light-Tower-Power

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Knicks played a ton of isolation down the stretch instead of trying to move the ball and get the corpses of Frye and Korver in switches which was strange, and they couldn't defend or grab a board to save their lives. Wade took an offensive rebound from Porzingis on one of the last possessions which should never ever happen.

Every time I watch a non-Celtics game I get on my knees and thank God for Brad Stevens afterward. Hornacek had seemingly no plan in the fourth quarter.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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E'Twuan Moore had 24 points tonight on 11-18 shooting (2-5) from 3. Who said Danny can't draft?

Teammate Darius Miller goes 5-8 on 3Pers. If NO can find some shooters, watch out.